The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Britain and the US were the two advanced capitalist societies
that pioneered neoliberalism. This followed the election victories of
Margaret Thatcher is British prime minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan as
US president in 1980.

Now we are seeing in both of these countries the cumulative effects of more than 35 years of globalised free market capitalism.

These effects have been greatly reinforced by what the Marxist
blogger Michael Roberts calls the Long Depression that started in
2007-8.

So we’ve seen a kind of involution of the political system. On
the one hand politics—whatever party is in office—has come to be
dominated by a corporate elite deeply wedded to neoliberalism.

But—because they still have votes—their bitterness and anger can have explosive political effects.

It was Trump himself who highlighted the parallels between his presidential campaign and Brexit.
In the referendum on 23 June all the forces of the establishment were mobilised to keep Britain in the European Union (EU).

The EU has become an engine driving neoliberalism deep into
European society, allowing the City of London remodelled under Thatcher
to flourish.

Trump’s victory underlines the success of the populist right in
shaping the rebellion against the effects of neoliberalism and crisis.

Again, in the US presidential election, the establishment, including big business, rallied behind Hillary Clinton.

They weren’t necessarily very enthusiastic about Clinton, but they preferred her to Trump.

Trump was deserted by the Republican leadership. The only
previous Republican presidential candidate to vote for Trump was the
hapless Bob Dole, who was obliterated by Bill Clinton in 1996.
As in the case of Brexit, the stance taken by big business was rational.

Trump campaigned against the liberal capitalist international
order that US imperialism has constructed and maintained since the
Second World War.

That is to say, against free trade and free movement of capital
underpinned by American military power. He denounced the various rounds
of trade liberalisation that he held responsible for the decline of US
basic industries.

So effective was he that he forced Clinton to disown the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement she had previously supported.
But this didn’t prevent Trump carrying the states of the old industrial
Midwest—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin—on Tuesday.

So what we have seen is two great revolts by voters against the effects of the existing neoliberal capitalist order.

Notice that I say “effects”. These weren’t revolts explicitly against neoliberalism.

Bernie Sanders could have mounted a serious challenge to Trump (Pic: Gage Skidmore)

After this electoral disaster, will the left in the US finally break free from the dead hand of the Democratic Party?

Three questions in conclusion. First, can this go further? Yes,
definitely. The French fascist leader Marine le Pen is celebrating
Trump’s victory as presaging her own in the presidential election next
spring.

Secondly, what difference will Trump actually make? This is
hard to say. The neoliberal era of financial speculation made him. He’s
not going to break with it.

But his voters will expect him to deliver on his largely
unfulfillable campaign promises. This will be a big source of strain
under his administration.

But, at the very minimum, after Brexit Trump’s election is the
second great breach in the liberal capitalist international order this
year.

The US has been the linchpin of this order, managing crises and
coordinating the other leading capitalist states. Now it has become a
wild card.

Can the arrogant, dysfunctional, increasingly unpopular EU fill the vacuum? To pose the question is to answer it.

More broadly, in the US and Britain the political system is
breaking loose from its traditional subordination to capital. Big
business wanted neither Brexit nor Trump and is looking on in dismay.

This will probably be only a temporary situation before a new
equilibrium between the state and capital is established. But it is a
source of enormously instability.

Thirdly, what do we do? Above all, resist. An open racist
succeeding the first black president will reinforce the wave of racism
sweeping through Western society.

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Third Estate Sunday Review

About Me

Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).